A bus service evaluation method from passenger's perspective based on satisfaction surveys: A case study of Beijing, China

Abstract

As an important part of urban public transport, bus service quality is an important factor affecting the choice of passenger travel mode. This paper constructs a set of satisfaction evaluation indicator systems from the perspective of passenger perception, covering the whole travel process. It is composed of 6 first-level indexes (timeliness, safety, convenience, comfort, reliability and economy) and 21 second-level indexes. Considering the scale of bus service in Beijing, this research carried out a stratified sampling on 100 bus lines and collected 3012 field questionnaire surveys. The basic information of the bus routes investigated, demographic questions and their opinions of the satisfaction of the bus service were all recorded in the questionnaire. After testing the reliability and validity of the indicator system, the paper proposes a satisfaction evaluation model weighted by the related coefficient. The results show that overall satisfaction score is 78.2 and the proportion of bus passengers who are satisfied with the bus service nearly 70%. Multivariate analysis of variance methods were employed to evaluate the satisfaction influencing factors. Conclusions can be drawn that the satisfaction score of timeliness is lowest, which is mainly influenced by three factors: the passenger's age, travel purpose and time. The research provides positive contributions toward normalizing performance evaluation for public transportation and enhancing the sustainable development of bus.